


as tradition dictates, (we share our pain to feel okay)

by Evanaissante



Series: so needless to say (slowly learning that life is okay) [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Because it's Margo, Explicit Language, First Meetings, How Margo and Eliot met, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, It's talk about your issues time with aunty Margo and uncle Eliot, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Misogyny, Other, Queliot isn't the main focus but it's implied, The Trials of Brakebills, pre-Season One, some OCs are here but they are irrelevant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-02 12:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evanaissante/pseuds/Evanaissante
Summary: Before the multiple ends of the world, before Fillory, before the Monster, a boy from Indiana and a girl from LA meet and love each other like no one has ever loved them before. Years after, Margo remembers.





	as tradition dictates, (we share our pain to feel okay)

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello, first thing first i don't know how i got here. i was never supposed to fall into the magicians' fandom but here i am with a one-shot that was supposed to be a short, sweet thing and ended up being not so short and not so sweet.
> 
> secondly, i'm belgian and speak french so if you see any obvious grammar mistake here, lemme know.
> 
> thirdly, quentin coldwater deserved better and i wanna throw hands with the showrunners so here is a story about how margo and eliot met, how terrible their past was and how fucking beautiful their friendship is. this is also an introduction to a series of queliot angst, so stay tuned for that? i guess?
> 
> anyway, enjoy!

It was not a particularly bad day to get abducted from your own dorm, half-naked and bare feet, by mysterious masked women. The evening air was warm but not humid and the grass under Eliot’s feet was soft to the touch. He wasn’t wearing any clothes, apart from his briefs and a robe that had been thrown his way as he was grabbed and forced out of his room, but he wasn’t cold and Brakebills would need to do a lot more to embarrass him.

Truly, it wasn’t that bad, just surprising and slightly unconventional, but Eliot could work with that. 

He could also work with the Trials that the second year students introduced to him and the rest of the newbies, how hard could a magical test be when you’re a magician? It’s pretty much just waving your fingers and waiting for stuff to catch fire or explode, nothing to worry about. And it’s not like Eliot’s an idiot, he’s actually what most people would call an _intellectual,_ or at least a fucking nerd, which is exactly what his brothers called him when he was doing magic tricks to entertain himself at the farm.

At the thought of Indiana and his siblings, Eliot automatically jolts like he’s getting electrified. It’s almost funny that his body reacts in such an intense way at the memory of the past twenty-two years of his life like it’s an open wound that needs to be sealed up and hidden. 

There’s probably something Freudian to it, something about his repressed childhood and teenage years have shaped him into a lothario, but he’s far too tired, and a little scared of what he’ll discover if he starts theorizing, to psychoanalyse himself.

One of the women who escorted him outside is talking about blah blah blah evaluation blah blah blah complicated blah blah blah expulsion and, wait, _what_? Expulsed? If he didn’t ace those stupid trials, Brakebills was going to send him back to Indiana and without any memories of his magical abilities?

Hell no, Eliot hadn’t signed for this, literally, when Dean Fogg had made him sign that stupid waiver Eliot had kind of took it as a proof that this was it, he was here until he graduated from party wizard to master, expert, absolute powerhouse, whatever warlock. Taking his memories and sending him back from where he came from was not an option. He couldn’t just go back to growing corn and milking goats with only a diploma in “The Most Liberal Arts” and nothing else under his belt. Not when he had cut all communication with his entire family and had refused to fly back for Christmas when his mother told him that he was being too optimistic in his own success. 

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_.

He couldn’t fail this, he had to destroy these fucking Trials to the point where the word trials would only ever be associated with the name Eliot Waugh. He could do this, he knew he could, but he was not sure about the others and with how things were shaping up, they were going to make them do those fucking tests in teams.

Eliot despised teamwork, he truly loathed it, it was one of the worst inventions on Earth. Who had thought one day “Oh, hey, why don’t I invite people, who I’m going to yell at and start hating, over to do something I could totally succeed at on my own?” However that fool had been, they’d probably been fucking French, that seemed like some French bullshit.

Still, he crossed his fingers and hoped that he was wrong, for the first time in forever, but soon enough one of the administrators called them inside the Physical Cottage and they were being put in teams of three to four. Gosh, why was the world so cruel to the pretty ones.

At least, Eliot told himself, these kids weren’t farmers, they were mostly all from Brooklyn or some other parts of New York he didn’t actually know but acted as if he owned most of the buildings there. His team was called “ **The Telekinedicks** ” and he was mad about that, but mostly because he hadn’t thought of that name himself. He was teamed up with a lesbian Ramona Flowers with an undercut and a neck tattoo, a buff guy whose face screamed Chad and a short girl wearing the most fabulous looking satin nightgown Eliot had ever seen and whose eyes were as big as a fawn’s, it was almost creepy. They were all already seated, so Eliot introduced himself by falling unto a chair and tipping an invisible hat.

“Greetings, fellow hostages, how are you holding up at this fine hour?” 

Scary Ramona didn’t reply, she just stared at him before rolling her eyes so hard that Eliot was sure they were about to pop out of their sockets. Chad didn’t really answer either, he just groaned something then hit his head on the table, hard enough to knock out anyone whose skull wasn’t made of concrete. The only one who was at least somehow civil was Doe Eyes McGee who smiled at him and grabbed a piece of his robe to admire it closer.

“Better now that someone wearing charmeuse satin has arrived.” She released it as she extended a hand toward him, “I’m Margo.” She said, and her voice was raspier and lower than Eliot had expected it to be.

“Eliot.” He replied with a genuine smile, it was not every day that someone had complimented the quality of his clothes or the choice of fabric, it was probably even the first time. “You like it?” He asked as he twisted the pans of his robe between two fingers, “The pattern was quite easy to make but the colour pigments can really fuck up the excellency of the textile if you apply too much at once.”

Margo blinked and then her smile stretched, “You made this?”

Eliot nodded nonchalantly, even though he’d never felt more proud in his life, “It’s nothing.”

Margo’s smile was now beyond what Eliot had ever seen, “Yeah right, it’s extremely complicated to sew satin into something wearable if you’re not an expert and you’ve made a Versace inspired robe, you know it’s fucking great, don’t try to suck your own cock through me, I’m not a praise glory hole.”

She smirked then slowly started paling, maybe because she was realising how vulgar it sounded out loud or because she thought she had gone too far but Eliot quickly grabbed her left hand, her eyes followed the movement and now they were looking at each other with a mix of wonder and esteem.

“That was the crudest, most indecorous, fucking _unrefined_ thing a complete stranger has ever said to me and I’ve been spat at on St Patrick’s day.” He joined their two hands and admired her crimson nails in the process, “Where have you been all my life?” He asked, his eyes locking with hers.

She wrapped her hands even tighter around his own and laughed softly, “Waiting for you to sew me a robe to go with my nightgown.”

“Gladly, Bambi,” He replied, “But only if you tell me why and how your skin practically glows while most of us mortals look green at 4 am.”

“It’s a simple highlight spell that-”

“Hey, the fashion fairies, you’re gonna help us with this or what?” The Chad lookalike threw a blue brochure at them and huffed as if they had personally offended him. “You can stare at each other’s reflection later, you weirdos.”

Eliot picked up the brochure, his excitement severely dialled down, but Margo didn’t look like the type of person who could be dialled down, she glared at the guy and clicked her tongue, “Oh, I’m sorry, did you feel excluded, Samuel? Do you want to talk about the history of clothes’ materials with us? Or should I include Eliot in the discussion we had before he arrived? The one where you told me I could crash in your room tonight because I look like I shave my _pubes_?” Her gaze turned icy, it almost made Eliot shiver. “Why don’t you try to read your fucking brochure without needing one of us to hold your hand and tell you the difference between an E and an I and we’ll work on this shit like we want to, asshat.”

Samuel, who still looked very much like a Chad, didn’t know what to say evidently, he was gaping and Scary Ramona next to him snorted in her hand as he fumbled over some sort of insult to throw back at Margo. Margo, on the other hand, had opened her brochure and was now reading it while humming the Charmed theme song.

Eliot was pretty sure that he had just fallen in love with her.

* * *

Margo hadn’t thought that she would meet someone with more than two working brain cells and some wit in this school, especially after being dragged through Brakebills by failed theatre students wearing party city masks and fake daggers. She hadn’t expected anything worth her time at Brakebills, except for the magic and even that was proving itself to be more disappointing by the second. Magicians, it turned out, weren’t more interesting or intelligent than UCLA’s students and they were just as self-centred. Magic wasn’t particularly mindblowing either, sure, it was nice to make things levitate by only moving your fingers, but Margo had really thought that it would change her life, that it would fix her every problem and maybe, just maybe, reveal something about her that she hadn’t known yet. But no, magic wasn’t born out of miracles, it didn’t do shit except imposing more rules to her already very controlled life. 

Leaving Los Angeles hadn’t been a mistake, she had always wanted to visit New York, and she wasn’t ready to abort the fantasy train yet, but she had expected more. She always did, that was kind of her main issue. Still, Brakebills wasn’t as awesome as she had thought and after two long months of boring conversations, bad-mannered guys and internally misogynistic girls, Margo had pretty much accepted that she would suffer her three years here alone.

But here he was, her miracle, and he was everything she had hoped he would be. She could just tell, from the way he dressed to the way he talked and, mostly, to the way his eyes flickered around the room with curiosity and acuity while he tried to hide it all under false stupidity, that he was so, so, so interesting. He was exactly what she wanted, the perfect cosmopolitan friend with just the level of sass and cynicism that any young woman who drank a Martini Dry in the morning desired.

She could already see it, they would become quick but vain friends who would stick with each other but never really share anything beyond futile comments about their sex lives and appearances. She would be the Alpha Queen with the plans and tools to conquer everything but he would be the Handsome King that everyone would follow and listen to, they’d rule this stupid school by the end of the year.

“So,” Margo started, her eyes following Eliot’s every move, “I’m thinking that we ditch these two and find a way to resolve this before dawn somewhere far away from the rest of the world.” He looked up from his brochure to listen and she was momentarily taken aback by the intensity of his eyes before he quickly killed the spark of intelligence in them to go back to his boastful mask. “Preferably close to a bar, what do you say?”

He smiled, a little smug which was a good look on him, before throwing his pen on the table and staring right back at her, “I think that if we do such a thing, there’s no way it won’t end with the two of us too drunk to solve this, but who gives a fuck in this economy.”

Ah, they were playing the “ _We obviously both care about this but let’s pretend we’re super flippant about our future_ ” game, it was always a fun one. “I’m just dying for a cocktail,” Margo replied, moaning a little just for the dramatics, “Why can’t we leave this two do all the work and come back when they’re done?” She licked her lips, still looking at Eliot whose eyes were just as bright as the candle in front of them, “Right, because they won’t do anything good without a little push.” 

She stretched her fingers as she flipped through the brochure before pausing on the fourth page, “But all jokes aside, I have no idea where to start.”

Margo wasn’t dumb, far from it, she could play the role of the stupid rich girl perfectly but only because she was a great actress. She was clever, and she knew it, but more importantly, she was hard-working and ambitious, the ideal balance between a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin, she could figure out and master almost any spell in record time if she so desired it and worked hard enough, but she hadn’t been introduced yet to the type of exercise that the Trials were giving her and yes, it did stress her out a little, just a tiny bit.

She didn’t want to lose all of her memories of magic, even if Brakebills was boring and full of rude people, she wasn’t ready to lose parts of herself like that, not when she was desperately trying to feel whole. 

Next to her, Samuel and Lyla, literally the girl with the dragon tattoo, started flapping their lips. It was almost cute how they were trying to fill the silence with dumb and dumber ideas in the hope that something would stick. But Margo didn’t care about them, she was focused on Eliot and the fact that his smile had only grown wider as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum made assumptions.

He had an idea, she was sure of it, and by the look in his eyes, it was probably a good one too. 

“You don’t know where to start because you’re approaching this like it’s the usual brand of magic.” He said, “But it isn’t, it’s not like anything we’ve encountered in class, it’s much more… _raw_.”

“It looks like Battle Magic,” Margo added, she turned her brochure towards Eliot, her pen tracing a rune under one of the images, “But it can’t be.”

“Why not?” Eliot asked, still smiling. “Because it’s forbidden?”

“Exactly, except it really looks like an Arrox Spell, with a few minor changes.” She slid her chair closer to him, “It’s clearly about producing malleable energy and directing it, which is impossible for First Years and illegal.”

“How do you know all this?” Lyla questioned, “We’re not supposed to research Battle Magic at all, you could get in trouble.”

Margo squinted at her, “You’re gonna rat me out, Blueberry Muffin?” Lyla shook her head and Margo turned away, “I read about the Arrox Spell in one of our books, it’s not my fault that the library still has illegal materials that I just happened to stumble onto.”

“Not your fault at all, Bambi,” Eliot said, “But you might want to look at those _minor changes_ closely.” He pointed at a particular line and highlighted it. “This isn’t Battle Magic or any type of learnable magic if we’re being precise, it’s not using any forms we know because it doesn’t need to.”

“ It-” Margo caught a glimpse of what Eliot was now drawing on the pages, and he was right, it didn’t look like anything she had ever seen, she wondered a little enviously why he seemed to understand it more than her. “It’s not _learnable_? As in, it’s impossible or it’s just outdated?”

He smiled as he looked away from the very intricate equations he had been designing for a hot minute and once again Margo was taken aback by the fire in his hazel eyes. “It’s not learnable to _you_ ,” He said, “But to people like me, it’s difficult but not impossible.”

Margo opened her mouth to ask what was so special about him’ what she didn’t have to master this spell when her eyes fell on their team’s name card and everything clicked. “I thought it was just a stupid pun, but you’re actually telekinetic, aren’t you?” 

She stared as he extended his hand towards the end of the table and an ashtray left nearby flew to his hand like a magnet. 

He put the ashtray on the table then crossed his fingers. “I’ll bet you ten dollars that every team has its own Jean Gray and stupid telekinesis pun as its name,” He flipped to the start of the brochure and showed Margo one of the most complicated calculations with a satisfied smirk. “This is a variation of an Arrox Spell, you were right, except it doesn’t create malleable energy it points it towards a designed target.”

“So, you can do it?” Lyla asked’ “Because if you’re wrong, you could fuck us all up.”

Eliot blinked a few times and Margo witnessed how quickly the burning light she had grown to admire died in his eyes. “I, uh, I guess, I’ll need a couple of minutes, it isn’t the easiest trick for telekinesis control, so, yeah.”

“Because, if you can’t fucking do it, I’m changing my team, dude.”

“Yeah!” Samuel banged his fist on the table and the way Eliot slightly flinched before covering it up made something in Margo want to tear the other man’s teeth out of his mouth with a working chainsaw. “If you can’t do this shit, I’m out!” 

“Okay, that’s enough.” Margo stood up from her chair’ she wasn’t the tallest or most intimidating woman in the world, but she knew enough about fear, in general, to terrify the two chicken shits in front of her. “Tell me, are you two telekinetic?” Lyla tried to speak, but she wasn’t here for it, at all. “Last time I checked, you,” She pointed at Samuel, “Thought this could be some sort of sex magic and you,” She turned towards Lyla and flared at her as hard as she could. “Thought that if we made a blood oath, we could solve this, so you don’t get to talk and stress Eliot about this when he’s the only one who has had a valid explanation at what the fuck this all means and when he’s the only _fucking_ one that can help, you can both put a cork in it and back the fuck off.”

“You had good theories too,” Eliot whispered next to her and the way her heart filled at the soft tone of his voice was something dangerous that she didn’t want to think about too closely. 

She looked at him, his dark curls, bright eyes, fidgety hands and colourful robe with something akin to fondness, it was the first time since kindergarten that she ever felt something so true for someone that wasn’t herself or her parents. It scared her, but she refused to mention it, she simply grabbed his hand and squeezed his fingers before dropping herself back onto her chair. “Go on, mutant boy,” He moved his hands as she let him go, twisting them in a shape she had never seen before. The air around them started heating up and Margo was certain she could hear sizzling coming out of the many different gestures Eliot was casting. She reclined herself a little furtherer on her seat and just stared, “Wow us.” She breathed.

And, god, he did.

* * *

Eliot had never really used his telekinesis in front of other people before today, he had always seen that part of him as something dangerous that shouldn’t be exposed to other human beings in case it would go mad and destroy everything in proximity. When he was younger, before Logan Kinear and its consequences on Eliot’s mental health, his powers would sometimes manifest themselves and he wouldn’t realize it, things that were too far away would move closer just because he wanted it, which in retrospect should have informed him on his abilities a lot sooner but when you’re barely eight and all alone, you don’t question magic, you just accept it as a part of life.

His biggest mistake had been to forget as he grew older, to think that it was just his imagination, it was nothing, nothing at all and it certainly didn’t come from him. What he had done to Logan, it was unforgivable and it had changed him. Afterwards, he hadn’t been able to stop smelling blood, he had felt like he was drenched in it like it was filling his nostrils, mouth and lungs, it had made him so sick, so fucking nauseous that he’d went to work with the goats at the farm. Before that moment, he had avoided them like the plague, but he had needed something that could cover up the metallic scent that was haunting him. He had stayed elbows deep in goat shit for two weeks before the smell of blood vanished and he hadn’t felt the need to vomit every time he breathed. 

For years, Eliot had associated his powers to death, to copper on his tongue and scarlet fingers that he could never scrub hard enough. He had tried to lock it down, to kill it and bury its broken pieces deep inside himself. 

Years later, using his telekinesis wasn’t an issue anymore, he’d learned with time that, just like any weapon, it wasn’t inherently evil but that it needed control, Still, he wasn’t comfortable with utilizing it surrounded by strangers, Eliot liked to think that he was a pretty experienced guy when it came to his own _skills_ , but that didn’t mean that he wanted to risk it, but he didn’t have much choice, it was this or bye-bye Brakebills and he knew what he prefered between those two scenarios. 

When his hands started moving, he felt something stir at his core, something that wanted to fly out of his heart and pull everything out of his body as it freed itself. At any other time, he would have locked it down and ignored the pain it would bring, but today he needed to let it go, to let himself go. He felt his fingers form a circle and break it almost immediately, then they did it again, the spell must have looked complicated to anyone else, but to him, to his powers, it felt as natural as falling asleep.

As he got deeper into the casting, the air around him started to run thin. He heard Samuel make a strangled noise next to him but he didn’t open his eyes, he couldn’t, it all felt too much, too intense, too big for one person. His left hand's fingers built a door and his right index broke it down with a snap, Eliot gasped and finally, here it all was.

He opened his eyes just in time to see the tip of his fingers glow slightly, like E.T’s when he had wanted to call home, the thought made him snort and he turned towards Margo to ask her if the spell had done anything else when he caught the look in her eyes.

She was watching him, her head resting on her propped arm, with something he couldn’t pinpoint. When he opened his mouth to ask if she was okay, she just grabbed the pen in front of him and started drawing something on the brochure’s cover.

It was a delicate flower, a small thing with narrow petals and a slim pedicel, Eliot stared at it, a little confused, “Okay, but why?”

Margo pushed the drawing at him with excitement, “Cut it.” She ordered, and Eliot felt like Margo wasn’t the type of person to say please when she asked something.

“It’s impossible to cut that, you’ve made it too small, I’ll tear it all up.”

“Cut it,” Margo repeated, there was a glint in her eyes, something that Eliot sometimes saw in himself when he stared at his reflection. He focused on the shape of the flower, on its small details and fragile parts, he felt his fingers move but they weren’t casting, it was coming from him, from his telekinesis and it was powerful. It was also more precise than usual, Eliot felt his mind getting chiselled into a sharp force as he directed it towards Margo’s flower. His hands moved around, forming a claw than slowly twisting each tip of his fingers like you would detach a screw, Lyla made a sound and Eliot suddenly felt warm liquid drip from his nose.

He opened his eyes and pressed two fingers to his upper lip to dry the beads of blood that had dribbled down his nose before picking up the prize of his labour, the tiny paper flower that was now detached from the brochure and was levitating just an inch above the table.

They all gawked at the flower, Lyla and Samuel with something akin to fear that Eliot was more than used to, he should have known that even in Brakebills, people would consider him too different, too dangerous. No matter where they were from, be it Indiana or New York, they were all the same disappointment.

Except for Margo, she was staring too but she was also clapping with true admiration and excitation. She hadn’t seemed afraid of what Eliot could do, quite the opposite, she had been more than on board to see how far he could go with this spell. She was different, a good different, Eliot didn’t know what to think about that.

Someone whistled behind him, one of the older students who was judging the teams to see who could pass the Trials, “Seems like you guys got the trick.”

Margo smiled and picked the flower, “We sure did.” When she looked back at Eliot, he couldn’t help but smile.

* * *

The second part of the Trials came sooner than Margo expected, she had hoped for some downtime, maybe just enough for her to run herself a bath, wash and condition her hair, maybe even do her nails and hydrate her skin. But no, Brakebills hated her and her beauty regimen, that was the only reason why they woke her up at 5 am before sending her in the fucking woods with a tote bag, she hadn’t even been aware that Brakebills was surrounded by a forest, this shit was mindblowing.

But here she was, running around this stupid ass place with a hippie cotton pouch in one hand, and desperately failing to catch fireflies with it. She tried to handle it like a net, she threw it while grasping the straps tightly, but it was hopeless. The bag was too small to cover enough space and even if she had caught anything, the fireflies could have easily escaped as she struggled to keep the bag closed. She’d been at it for five hours and she was seriously close to losing all hope.

This was so fucking stupid, even stupider than when she had tried to disarm the security system of her neighbour’s house by throwing her shoe at it, this was a new level of absurdity. She didn’t even understand how this all fit with learning magic, her spells didn’t work here and she was doing nothing else than pointless chores in hope that it would save her from a future without magic, she hated this place so fucking much.

She threw the bag in the air one more time, disturbing the fireflies that calmly danced around her, then groaned loudly when the bag came back down empty. “Motherfucker!” She cried out, throwing the bag on the ground in rage, “Why do you even need fireflies, you sicko? Are you gonna eat them, is that it? It’s fucking messed up!” She sighed then let herself fall on the floor, defeated. 

The sky was beautiful today, it looked smooth, like the surface of a canvas, and the clear blue mixed with the fluffy clouds before dissolving into white floss. The trees around Margo were rocking back and forth as the wind ran through their branches, making the birds sing and the world spin. Weird, Margo had never really taken the time to just look, but there was so much around her that she wanted to inspect, from the dark green moss on the trees’ bark to the sound of squirrels climbing higher and higher towards the sky.

Would the world, the mundane one, would be so bad if she failed this test? If she left Brakebills, if her memory got erased, maybe she could start again, maybe she could become somebody else, somebody that would belong somewhere, someone who would lie down in a forest and not feel like the world expected more of her than silence and surrender.

She let her hands caress the grass and pluck a few strands, feeling the dew dampen her hands as she breathed out and closed her eyes. Maybe she could do this, just give up, maybe it was time to learn from her mistakes and stop fighting when every single thing was telling her to stop. She almost did it, she almost fell asleep on the floor with the sound of birds soothing her to sleep, then she heard a noise, one that couldn’t come from anywhere else than another person’s mouth, and she jolted back up immediately. Maybe she wasn’t as ready to give up as she thought she was.

“Is someone here?” She called out, as she quickly cleaned her hands, she brushed her clothes to dispose of the dirt and grass stains she had gathered on her ass before she started advancing towards the source of the noise, “Answer me, assholes.”

Another noise, closer now, it sounded female and frustrated, she could relate to that.

“Hey lady of the forest, I’m talking to you!” She walked further, her tote bag clenched in her first as she made her way through dense bushes. How come Brakebills had such a large and intense forest attached to its university? This entire woodland wonderland looked like something out of an old fantasy book, like the one Margo used to read when she was in middle school, that story with the three British kids who enter a world of high kings and talking animals through a clock.

Nothing made sense here, Margo hated things that didn’t make sense, she was a no-bullshit type of gal. She liked when the world followed a certain order, maybe that was fucking weird coming from a twenty-three-year-old LA girl but Margo liked her policies and codes, she didn’t like the rules that were forced onto her but she could appreciate the ones she made up herself, and in her head there were no fucking forests with goddamn streams of water in upstate New York.

She huffed as she ducked another tree branch and then stopped right in her tracks, unable to completely comprehend the scene playing in front of her. Lyla was lying on top of a very agitated goat while trying to convince the poor animal to stay still.

“Lyla?” Margo called, her eyes locked on the screaming goat, “What the hell are you doing?” 

The other girl looked up and Margo could see both embarrassment and relief on her face, “Margo, thank fuck, help me milk this goat?”

“What? No!” The goat yelled approvingly.

“Please, I need to milk her, it’s part of my trials.”

“That’s fucked up, man.” Margo took a few steps forward. “Do you even have, like, a bucket?”

Lyla laughed nervously, “That’s kinda the issue here.”

“You mean the fact that you’re almost sat on the goat isn’t the _upsetting thing_ here?”

“I only have this.” Lyla extended a net towards Margo who grabbed it by instinct. “I don’t know if it will do anything, maybe I can sieve the milk? To make it more… milky?” She flushed a little, “I have no idea.”

“We’re on the same boat, sister,” Margo shoved her bag in Lyla’s open hand, “I need to catch fucking fireflies with that thing.”

Lyla frowned and the goat made a shrill noise, which almost made Margo snort, “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“You can say that again.” 

Margo wasn’t friends with Lyla, far from it, she didn’t even really know the girl, they had only met for the Trials and even if they had before, Margo wouldn’t have noticed nor cared, Lyla was the type of fake confident chick Margo could destroy with her hands tied in her back and her eyes closed, she could be a cunt like that, but she was honest about it. Still, seeing Lyla her made Margo a little more comfortable, and Margo wouldn’t deny it, she was fucking tired and scared to fail this bullshit giant life fucking test, she was growing more terrified by the second but at least she wouldn’t fail alone. It was probably selfish, and probably selfish was Margo’s middle name, but it eased something inside her to know that she wouldn’t be known at Brakebills like The One Who Failed. She would just be a name in a long list of poor bastards who thought they were here to do magic and not try to get shitty insects inside a hippie, all cotton, eco-friendly bag.

Margo sighed deeply, she was still scared and a part of her, the one who could never back off from a fight without yelling, breaking stuff, sometimes actually _fighting_ and generally putting herself in physical and emotional danger, was still telling her that giving up was the worst thing in the world, that this wasn’t her, this person who was just accepting defeat and sitting on the actual ground like it was nothing. And that part was probably right, that part of herself was born out of pure rage that should never truly guide her but it was also born out of the experience, of years of defeat and just knowing that she’d always been more than this, more than what she presented to the world. But deep down, deeper than her anger and fear, Margo knew that she couldn’t overcome this, and in a way, she didn’t want to.

She was tired, she’d been tired since she arrived at Brakebills, or maybe she’d been tired before that, certainly, she just couldn’t remember a time where she wasn’t tired.

Maybe she’d been born exhausted.

“Are you okay?” Lyla asked her, frowning a little, “You look kinda sad.”

Margo didn’t get sad, sadness was for children and dying people, she was neither, she was fucking tired and yeah, she was angry, that was probably the only emotion she let herself feel freely and mostly because it was the only one she couldn’t bottle up. Her anger as far too strong to get locked down, but sadness? Nah. She didn't get sad, she couldn’t, and she surely didn’t look like it. 

“Do I seem to like the kind of bitch who gets sad?” She eyed Lyla up and down, something vicious ready to drip out of her mouth like poison because that was the kind of person she was. She was the kind of person who took the genuine worry of someone who never asked for any of this either and squashed between her fingers like a particularly annoying bug. Margo wasn’t wired for this, she could understand anger, cruelty, even indifference but not this, never this, not if she could help it.

Lyla blinked a few times, the goat was finally immobile in her arms, “You just look, I don’t know, done with it all, I guess?”

If only.

Being fucking done with it all would mean letting herself out of this in one piece, it would mean not constantly feeling like a breathing uncomplete jigsaw puzzle. No, Margo wasn’t done with it, she could lie, she could try to accept it, even with that part of herself that screamed bloody murder at the thought, but she would never just be done with it.

“I guess,” She said and the lie didn’t burn her tongue, it felt natural and she absently thought that truth would probably be the one to taste like ashes in her mouth.

She wrapped her arms around her legs as she tried to ignore Lyla, the goat, the damn forest and the disappointment that was settling in her guts like a tumour. She didn’t put her head in her hands, even though she craved the safety and comfort that the darkness would bring, because it was far too telling of a move and Margo was a pro at concealing the anxiety and pain that boiled in her veins. She was, after all, a great actress. 

Like this, she just looked cold and Lyla didn’t need to know more than that.

Her thoughts weirdly turned towards the guy she’d met at the first Trial, Eliot, she somehow hoped that he had figured this shit out and that he was back at the Physical Kids’ Cottage, sewing something beautiful while listening to outrageously bad music, like the Beach Boys, he seemed the type. Maybe she was becoming soft because the image of that tall boy singing Kokomo under his breath made her heart clench awkwardly in her chest. So what, sue her, she had liked him, she had seen something in him, something else than the futile role she had written for him in her head. It was stupid, but that’s what got her to break character, what made her left knee jerk up and her eyes get shiny.

Eliot had promised to sew her a robe and now, once Brakebills was done with her, she wouldn’t even remember the shade of the fabric she had picked, she wouldn’t remember that particular mix of blue, purple and green that would look like a cape of peacock feathers on her shoulders. She wouldn’t remember Eliot’s earnest smile when she handed the fabric back to him, she wouldn’t remember any of it.

This was all such motherfucking bullshit.

“Margo, you sure you okay? You look kinda pale.”

She was gonna fucking lose it, she was gonna bite and it would turn ugly, she was gonna tear away at Lyla until she couldn’t find her own pieces back, she would-

_Wait._

“Did you hear that?”

“Probably some animals,” Lyla said, throwing an obvious look at the animal already resting in her arms.

“No,” Margo grabbed her hand, getting Lyla up on her feet while she clenching the goat to her chest, “Someone else is here.”

Lyla staggered a little with the goat bleating and moving, but Margo kept on pulling her forward. Somebody else was in these woods, Margo just fucking knew it. “Margo, wait.”

They passed a beautiful clearing surrounded by violets and lilies, the type that you only ever see in a Disney movie, but Margo wasn’t focused on that, she was far more interested in the voices that echoed through the forest, the ones that proved they weren’t alone here, that maybe, just _fucking_ maybe, Margo still had a chance to figure this shit out and keep her memories.

For the first time in a long time, longer than her admission at Brakebills, longer than she could even remember, Margo had hope, maybe she wouldn’t go back to being uncomplete, maybe she could find a missing piece.

It was just a maybe, but maybe was all she needed.

* * *

“I’m not giving you my rock.” Eliot’s grip on the small black stone tightened as Samuel took a step forward, “I’m warning you, you wannabe Spike, back off.”

“Stop being fucking stupid, I have a bucket, you can store your flowers in it, just give me the rock.”

“No.” Samuel groaned but Eliot didn’t care, sure, maybe he was being irresponsible, but he didn’t trust Samuel at all, he was only half certain that the guy wouldn’t try to kill him by hitting him with his bucket once he had his back turned, so nope, not giving away his cool rock to that douche.

Sure, Eliot was supposed to get a bunch of flowers and the bucket would help, but that’s not what had been given to him, he got a black stone and a list of plants he didn’t recognise, so technically, even with the bucket, he was screwed.

Just great.

“Dude, we’ve been at this for over four hours, just give me the damn rock.” Samuel approached again and Eliot was this close to just telekinetically beat his ass.

“I said back the fuck off, Samuel.”

“You’re being fucking stupid, dude, just give me the stone.”

“ _No_.”

“Give me!”

“No! You didn’t even tell me what you have to do, how am I sure that this would even help you?”

“It’s none of your business!” Samuel shouted in a manner that he must have deemed intimidating but that Eliot found quite pathetic.

“Then the rock is also none of your business.”

“That doesn’t even make _sense_!”

“It’s my rock, I decide if it makes sense or not!” Okay, even Eliot had to admit that this wasn’t his strongest argument to date but he would be damned if he just gave up this to a guy who wore baggy jeans, no, it was his artefact, Samuel could find his own rock on the fucking floor if he wanted one so badly. “Now, leave me alone.”

Eliot moved to get back to his flowers when he heard something on his right and saw something move behind some trees. Now, he wasn’t the type of person to believe in monsters, magic was maybe real but that didn’t mean that werewolves and other terrifying crap like this were real… right? It would just be too much weirdness for only one planet, they couldn’t have magic and also Goosebumps monsters roaming New York as well, it would be just too much of a deal. Or maybe, magic was so fucked up than to have it, they also had to keep the literal fleshing eating creatures as well.

“What was that?” Samuel asked as he picked up the bucket he had thrown on the ground a few minutes ago to aim it at the moving bushes.

Eliot didn’t reply, he was holding his rock so tightly that it would probably leave a mark on his palm. He didn’t want to throw it, because it was his damn rock, that second year Brakebills student gave it to him and if he couldn’t pick the right twenty flowers, that rock might be the only thing he’ll be able to keep from this place, but he also kind of wanted to see what was behind the bushes. A branch cracked and Eliot was ready to run in the opposite direction when Margo and Lyla appeared in front of them. 

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ!” He cried out and he could see Samuel drop the bucket on the side. 

Margo grinned, “Did we scare you, you limp cocks?”

“People usually say pussies in those situations,” Samuel uttered, he was maybe trying to sound vicious but that boy was a damn mess.

“Pussies aren’t terrified of a few moving trees and voices, Samuel.”

Lyla snorted next to Margo and Eliot felt an intense sense of relief to finally see some familiar and _trust-worthy_ faces in a situation with such a high level of weird, the _90’s Bjork music video_ kind of weird.

“Glad to see you, Bambi,” He said and the way Margo looked at him warmed his heart better than any heating spell ever could.

She started to nod at him but then her eyes fell on his rock, which he was still clasping firmly in one hand. “Why do you have a flint?” 

Eliot turned the rock in his hand, noting that he had cut his hand slightly in the centre and that blood was already drying on the corners of the stone. “Uh, a student gave it to me to gather mysterious flowers.”

Margo frowned at the exact moment when Lyla perked up and why did Eliot only notice now that she was holding a rather small goat in her arms like a sack of potatoes, “What type of flowers?” 

Eliot took out his list, “Calendula, Valerian and other very Roman Emperors sounding names.”

“Isn’t that a movie?” Samuel said, “With like Beyoncé in it?”

“You’re thinking of Rihanna and it’s an adaptation of a comic book,” Margo corrected with an eye-roll.

“It’s also a root that can cure urinary tract infections,” Lyla replied absently. She huffed when Samuel threw her a perplexed look, “I used to gather herbs with my aunt in the Summer, she was kind of a witch.”

“Kind of a witch?” 

“Not like us,” She specified, “The type who can’t do any magic but who makes potions and has crystals.”

Samuel snickered, “So she’s cuckoo.”

Lyla glowered at him, “I don’t judge your fucked-up taste in polo shirts and you don’t judge my nice aunt who picks up flowers in her garden, understood?” The goat in her arms bleated agreement.

“But wait,” Margo raised one hand between both of that as to stop their battle of glares, “You know the flowers Eliot has to collect?”

Lyla shrugged, “Yeah, sure.”

Margo turned to Samuel and called attention to his abandoned bucket, “What’s your task? Why’d you have a damn bucket?”

“I need to start a fire.”

Eliot threw his hands in the air, “You could have told me this three hours ago, Samuel.”

“Well, I don’t trust you!”

“Okay, shut up.” Margo gestured at the both of them, “Shut up and listen to me very closely because I won’t repeat this, understood?” They all looked at each other before nodding slowly and shutting up, the goat included.

Margo grabbed Samuel’s bucket, “This,” She pointed at the stone, then the goat before throwing a bag in the bucket, “These tools, they’re not fucking made for our task.” She laughed a little and it sounded more hysterical than joyful, “ _We_ ’re not even made for our tasks!”

Samuel crossed his arms, “Is there a point to all of this?”

“Didn’t I just tell you to close your goddamn mouth for five fucking seconds,” It was more of a growl than anything else and Eliot felt the corner of his lips lift when Samuel started to sulk in his corner. Margo took a deep breath and continued, “What I am trying to say is that it isn’t a coincidence that we’re all here, in these woods where we can’t do any magic and we have to fucking communicate with tasks that we’re shit at, weird-ass equipment and people around us that would be ten times better at the job.” She smiled, and it was sincere this time. “We’re supposed to work as a team.”

The realisation suddenly dawned on Eliot, of fucking course the four of them would be put together again to figure out a way of doing this, of course, this was all about trust and teamwork once again because the world hated him and wanted him to absolutely bond with people he had barely met and barely cared about, except for Margo, he kinda liked Margo.

“Well, isn’t this just great.” He sighed, “We’re gonna fix this with the power of love.”

Margo winked at him, “Don’t worry, I’ll paint your nails and we’ll share our tragic backstory when this is over.”

“Perfect, this is all I expected from my highly prestigious, magical grad school.”

“Can we focus?” Lyla called back, “I have a stinking goat in my arms and a net, I wanna be done with this shit and take a bath.”

“You and me both, sis,” Margo echoed, “So, let’s all share our utensils with the class, folks.”

She dropped the bucket with her tote bag on the ground, Eliot quickly placed his stone next to it as Lyla finally let go of her goat and placed her net inside the circle that was forming all of their shit. “So,” Margo clapped her hands together, “We know Lyla can pick Eliot’s flowers.” She passed the tote bag to the other girl and Eliot handed her his list as well. “I can start a fire,” She said, picking up the flintstone and taking off one of her many bracelets, “I went to survival camp when I was thirteen and I have some steel here so it will be a piece of cake, now, who can catch fireflies?”

Samuel took the net, “I used to hunt them with my sisters when I was little.”

Margo turned towards Eliot and he already knew what she was going to ask, what she was going to say, he didn’t need to be a fucking genius, which he was, to make the connection between a bucket and a damn goat, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it, he couldn’t voluntarily pick this vile part of his past up without probably causing some sort of anxiety attack.

He had to, though, they all had to revisit a part of their past and it wasn’t any of their faults, even Samuel the fucker, if Eliot’s journey to Brakebills and magic hadn’t been paved with good memories of running after bugs with his siblings or gathering herbs with his aunt. His past had been spent walking in literal shit and now he had to embrace it somehow and use his hard-earned knowledge. But he didn’t have to offer any explanations, he could just pick up the bucket and milk this goat and move on from it. He’d have to never speak of this again, though, his reputation was on the line and it meant never talking to these people afterwards. So bye-bye Lyla, who didn’t seem that bad, just a tiny bit boring. Goodbye Samuel and good riddance. Ciao Margo, who he actually honestly really liked and could possibly see as a companion in this life-destroying mess that was Brakebills.

God fucking damn it.

* * *

Once again, Margo was proven right, it was starting to get a little boring, being this perfect could only mean that one day she wouldn’t be surprised with her superiority, but what could she say? She had known from the very start that those woods couldn’t possibly be on the Brakebills’ propriety, that they were shady as fuck and she’d been right. They were just an illusion, a good one, but it was just that, another party trick.

When she’d been done starting her fire and the rest of her team had finished their own tasks, the two students who had given them their assignments had just materialized out of thin air like some sort of weird supernatural being and Margo had been particularly satisfied to see the veil they had put over the cottage disappear with the forest.

She’d felt so vindicated that she wanted to mention it to Eliot before they went back inside their dorms to finally rest, but the other magician just downright ignored her as he disposed of his bucket full of milk and walked back inside. It wasn’t really rude per se, they weren’t besties or whatnot and he didn’t owe anything to her, but she had expected some sort of acknowledgement if not gratitude. When he’d been the one to figure the first task, she had congratulated him the entire evening while they had drinks, but when it was her time to shine, he just ditched her?

“Dickwad,” She breathed, a little insulted.

She felt someone grab her shoulder and she rotated to see Lyla, a big smile plastered on her face. “Hey, I just wanted to thank you.”

Margo blinked a few times, she hadn’t envisaged this, coming from Eliot? Sure, she had, after all, spent a whole evening talking magic and clothes with him while he mixed drinks, they had a sort of connection, but Lyla? Nah, she never would have seen this in a million years.

“What for?” She said, “I needed to win this as much as you, I did it for me.”

“Yeah, probably, but I wouldn’t have figured it out without you.” Lyla extended a hand and Margo shook it without thinking, “This place, magic, it means a lot to me and without you or Eliot, I wouldn't still be here.”

“That’s fine,” And Margo meant it, she was presumably never going to really form a friendship with Lyla, but she weirdly respected her. “I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to all of this either.”

“Yeah, I think we all kind of share that feeling.” She frowned and Margo followed her eyes, noticing the bucket of milk resting on the table the second-year students had made appear with them. “Where did someone like Eliot Waugh learn how to milk a goat? That’s so weird.”

Margo opened her mouth then almost immediately closed it, “I have no idea,” She whispered. She hadn’t thought about it, to be honest, it hadn’t been the priority, but now that they were done with this task, she couldn’t help but wonder a little. Eliot didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would go to a city farm as a kid, Margo couldn’t even really imagine him as a kid either, she somewhat believed that he had just popped out wearing vests and drinking Old Fashioneds. She was curious, she had to admit it. It was just so out of character that she felt the need to examine it closer, but seeing how Eliot had just purposefully ignored, she wasn’t certain he would welcome her inquiries with a smile.

Nevertheless, the thought couldn’t leave her mind and when she was taken away from the Physical Kids’ Cottage the next morning for the last part of the Trials, the image of Eliot’s skilled hands and controlled movements as he milked the goat simply obsessed her. It could have been seen as weirdly sexual, she supposed, she’d seen people with stranger kinks than milking or whatever, but it wasn’t that. It just was so odd, it didn’t work with the whole persona that Eliot was presenting to the world. Margo had so many questions and when the second-year students announced the instructions and rules of the last task, she knew she had a shot at getting her answers.

She was the one who asked to be paired with Eliot, she didn’t beg because she was Margo fucking Hanson but she did bat her lashes and bite her lip to make sure that her demands would be followed, which turned out to be the right call. In the evening, the same student gave her a rope, some paint, a book and then pushed her inside a locked classroom where an agitated Eliot Waugh paced over and over.

He didn’t look at her when she entered the room, but Margo could see how he clenched his jaw in apprehension when she walked towards him and placed the Trials’ tools on a nearby table. They stayed in absolute silence for a few seconds before the pressure in the air made Margo lose it.

“Hi to you too, Eliot, it’s such a damn pleasure to see you again.” She sat at one of the desks and crossed her legs. 

He did look at her this time, but it was brief and Margo didn’t know why but his shifty attitude made her skin crawl. “Hi.”

“Oh! He talks,” She was pushing, she knew, but she was offended and logic couldn’t possibly reign her in when she felt insulted. “What a surprise.”

“Did you expect something else, Margo?” It was the very first time he called her by her name and not the corny nickname he’d chosen for her when they met, the realisation made Margo’s skin heat up.

”No,” It was almost cutting, almost too sharp to not be downright hostile. Good, Margo didn’t care. “But I expect you to get your head out of your ass because we have a spell to do together.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine_.”

He picked up the book, flipping the pages quickly as if they had personally provoked him before pausing, eyes wide open in shock.

“They want us to share our deepest, darkest, most _repressed_ secrets?” He read out loud, Margo just hummed in answer. “To each other?” He gawked at her, his hands wrapped so tightly around the book that they might have ripped the edges slightly. “What kind of YA sitcom bullshit is this?!”

“Apparently it’s an old ritual executed by battle magicians before going into battle together,” Margo checked her nails instead of looking at Eliot, he did deserve a taste of his own medicine. “To bond in harmony.”

“We’re not battle magicians,” Eliot’s voice was getting higher by the second, Margo almost felt bad for him, he seemed truly unsettled by the news. “Brakebills shouldn’t have the power to push all my boundaries and break every single one of my barriers, that’s not okay.”

“I don’t think they care.”

“Well, _I_ do!”

“Tough shit, bitch!” It wasn’t a shouting match yet but if Margo was left unattended, it could very well become a fucking championship. “You’re just gonna have to suck it up, buttercup, and tell me your kinkiest secrets if you want to continue to be a broody magician.”

“This is blackmail!” Eliot yelled back, throwing his hands in the air and with them, the book. “You can’t possibly tell me you’re okay with this.”

“I am.”

“ _Bullshit_ ,” He was heaving now and Margo didn’t know if she should be worried that he seemed so damn nervous at the thought of sharing secrets. He didn’t look like a serial killer, but who knew? Not her, or at least not yet. “I may not know you that well, but you can’t just accept this. It’s an intrusion of privacy!”

“There are worse things than having to confess my catastrophic one night stands to someone, like, you know-” She pauses theatrically, “Forgetting that magic exists.”

Eliot laughed but it was nothing like Margo had heard from him before, it was cold and sharp like the blade of a knife, “It’s not just going to be that,” He gestured towards the back that flew to his hands and opened it before thrusting it into Margo’s, “It says here that we must share our _utmost truth_ , I don’t know about you, but mine isn’t the memory of my first blowjob.”

She wanted to say something shocking and heinous, just to see if she could colour his pale cheeks and maybe make him laugh, truly laugh, but she was also starting to doubt this, to doubt herself. She liked Eliot, she did and he was probably the only person in this school she could stand long enough to do this task with, but she hadn’t really thought that they would need to dig so deep. She had been ready to tell the story of how she rocked Ray Lantaza’s world at the sound of Whitesnake when she was sixteen, but her utmost truth? Maybe not.

“We don’t have a choice,” She murmured as she picked up the white paint and the ropes, “I meant it when I said that I can’t think of something worse than forgetting all of this. This is it to me, Eliot, this is all I have.”

“It’s all I have too.” He replied softly and Margo wouldn’t point out how his voice trembled slightly but she heard it.

They didn’t talk when they stripped down, even if Margo had a few comments to make, but the silence between them felt like something sacred. She wasn’t sure of what would happen if she broke it, she just knew that there was a fragile and unspoken pact between to get this done with. She also knew that whatever she would tell Eliot in this room, it would never be repeated and she hoped that he could read that promise in her eyes too.

She painted his face and chest then shivered when he did the same before tying their hands together. Eliot looked less nervous when they finally stared into each others’ eyes, he was still a little fidgety but there was some sort of acceptance there too.

“Do you want to start?”

Margo nodded and took a deep breath, she should have felt more reluctant or even a little cautious under Eliot’s attentive introspection, she was naked and painted, after all, but when she opened her mouth, she almost felt safe, saver that she had been in years.

“I don’t know where to start, it’s been a long time since I’ve told anyone anything about myself,” The last time, she’d been thirteen and yelling at her parents the deepest parts of herself in the hope they would finally understand everything, finally understand _her_ . “I could start with the beginning, I guess,” But what had been the beginning? She couldn’t remember the fracture, the moment where she had no longer been Daddy’s little princess and she became _Margo_ , the rebellious teen, _Margo_ , the annoyance, _Margo_ , the angry one.

“My father never used my name when I was little, I think no one in my house ever called me Margo before the age of twelve,” Her father would always find a cute nickname, she’d been his princess, sure, but she’d also been his pearl, his heart, his honeycomb, never just _Margo_. “My father, he-uh, he loved me a lot and I loved him too.” She’d loved her mother too, of course, but the bond she shared with her father had been stronger than anything else in her life. “He worked a lot but he would always call me when he was away and he’d bring me back gifts,” She paused, the memory of a doll with the darkest eyes and hair stuck in her head, “So many gifts.”

Eliot didn’t say a word, but Margo could feel how his fingers traced circles on her hands, “One day, I told him and my mother that I wanted to become a lawyer at dinner,” She looked up and why were her eyes so glassy? “Because that’s what you do at the dinner table, right? You tell your parents about your day at school, about your friends and maybe about what you want to fucking become when you get older.” Had her voice always been so low? Did she always utter every word like a threat or was this new? “And my father, my own father, my _hero_ , he looked at me and he laughed.”

She could feel angry tears slide down her face, angry tears that burned her skin, that turned to acid on her cheeks and filled her with violent rage, “He _laughed_ , I told him that I wanted to go to law school, I was thirteen years old, I was a fucking child who wore Juicy lipgloss and butterfly bracelets but I _knew_ that I wanted to go to law school, get a fucking degree and win impossible cases like a damn boss.” She gripped Eliot’s wrists, “Because that’s what I’ve always been, a motherfucking boss.”

He smiled at her, that small smile filled with something too close to fondness to not set her on edge, “I told him that I wanted to change the world, that I wanted to be the best damn lawyer the world had ever seen and he told me _sure, baby girl, now eat your chicken_ .” She cleared her throat and it felt raw, “I told him, again and again, but every time he would just laugh and dismiss it, dismiss me like I was nothing. He would stare at me in the eyes and he wouldn’t see _me_.”

“What did you do?” Eliot whispered.

Margo could feel her lips tremble so she bit them, “I-” Why was this so hard? It wasn’t so fucking bad, “I went to UCLA and I became an actress.” She tasted blood on her teeth, “Because daddy said I should.” And it had been that easy, right? Her father had said jump and she had only asked how high. “I went to UCLA then when I came home my mother started talking about marriages, about husbands, children and kitchen tiles and I fucking exploded, I told them that they had ruined my childhood and that I wouldn’t let them ruin my life.”

“You ran to New York?”

“I ran to Brakebills,” She smiled a bloody smile, “I ran towards magic and away from my parents because the utmost truth about me, Eliot, it’s that I act like I know what the fuck I’m doing.” She felt so tired, so so tired. “I act like I know, like I’m that bitch but all I am is an angry little girl who would have done anything to make her daddy proud. I went to a school I didn’t care about and I’ve hidden parts of myself just so he’d keep loving me.” She was choking on tears and the copper taste at the back of her throat, “But it didn’t matter, because he never loved me. He only ever loved his little princess, his pearl, his perfect girl, but never me.” She felt the ropes around her wrists fall, “He never loved _Margo_ because he never knew me and now he never will because I’ve built myself so high off the ground, so far away from him that he’ll never see me fall, he’ll never know and that’s where I fucking win.” She clenched her teeth, “He’ll never have this, he’ll never have _me_.”

She had yelled the last bit, she could tell from the echoes that were reverberating towards her but Eliot didn’t seem startled. He was still holding her hands, eyes boring into her own with something she couldn’t define gleaming brightly. Margo took a shirt that had been thrown to the ground earlier, it was Eliot’s but she didn’t care, she was cold and exhausted, she also didn’t want to be naked anymore. “Say something,” She murmured, voice coarse.

He lifted one hand and caressed her cheeks where her tears must have left marks and he kissed the other one tenderly, “Margo Hanson, you are the bravest person I’ve ever met”

She pushed him away, “Don’t fucking joke about this,” Not him, not when he looked at her like this. “It isn’t funny.”

“I’m not joking.” He said, one hand still on her face, “I mean it.”

“I didn’t go to war, Eliot,” She wiped her eyes and hated how wet they were, “Didn’t you hear me? I let my parents manipulate me in being a compliant idiot and then I ran like a coward.”

“I heard you,” He sat down on one of the desks, his hands still tied in front of him and Margo couldn’t help but notice how the paint on his face made him look handsome in this light. “But I don’t think you did, because this wasn’t cowardice, trust me, I know everything about that. No, this was you,” He pointed at her heart, “ _You_ , Margo Hanson, taking your life back and making it your own. You overcame decades of indoctrination from the people who were supposed to protect you and help you get anywhere in life and you made the world your _bitch_. That’s brave and it’s also kind of badass.”

“Shut up,” Why was she crying again, why was this white boy making her feel things? “It’s your turn.”

“Stop crying first.”

“I’m not crying, there’s something in my eye.”

“Yes, it’s called tears.”

“ _Shut up_ and spill.”

“Do you want me to shut up or spill because those are two very different actions.”

“I swear to fucking god, Eliot, if you don’t start talking I’m going to beat yo-”

“Okay, okay, okay, just-” He stood up and took her hands, “Just let me have this, okay?”

She nodded because what else was she supposed to do? Tell this stupid, trembling, terrified guy to take a step back and let go of her hands as he tried to tell her his darkest secret? Margo was a bitch, but not a monster.

“I was born in one of the shittiest towns in all of America,” He began, “I was born on a farm, in Indiana and if that’s not bad enough for you, I’m the youngest of four kids, all boys, all wannabe farmers.” Margo clutched his hands tighter as he started shaking, “My childhood could be bottled into an eau de toilette called _Rotting Corn and Goat Dung_ with just a splash of getting beat up by your own dad and brothers because you’re a great fucking fag.”

“Eliot-”

“It was pretty clear early own that I just wasn’t like them, right?” He wasn’t expecting an answer, “It’s pretty transparent, I think. Well, my dear dad thought so too and that just wouldn’t do, because it’s a thing to sell weed like my brother Adam, or impregnate the girl next door like my brother Noah or even shoot rodents with dad’s rifle like my brother David, the damn psychopath. But kissing boys is where daddy dearest draws the fucking line.” 

He was almost shouting and his face was getting red but Margo thought that if she stopped him now, he would never speak to her again. “That’s where my dad says it’s too much and tells my brothers that when I’m busy cleaning the cows’ shit, they should just throw me to the ground and kick me as hard as they can. And if they can leave me there to crawl back on with a few broken ribs than that’s even better.”

“But it’s fine, right?” He wasn’t crying not crying and that made it worse, “Because my mom, the one who taught me how to sew and cook, the one who called me sweetheart and kissed my forehead every night before I fell asleep, my _mom_ , she’s gonna help, right?”

He still wasn’t expecting an answer but Margo wanted to give one to him, she wanted to scream yes, because the other option would be too much to bear. “Except, well, she doesn’t, right? Because why would she? Dad said not to help the fag and that went for her too, so she stayed there.” His eyes are shining like gemstones but the tears still don’t spill, “While I spit blood in cow shit, my mom cooked dinner for my brothers and father. She didn’t come looking for me because even the people who love me know that I’m not fucking _worth it_ .”

The ropes start falling as Margo’s hands leave Eliot’s to find his face, “That’s my truth, Margo, I’m not the person you thought I was. I’m a country bumpkin who has absolutely nothing to offer and whose absolutely unloveable.” 

Eliot was maybe not crying, but Margo surely was. “That’s not true.” She blurted out.

“The ropes say otherwise,” Eliot laughed wetly.

“Fuck the ropes,” She grabbed his face before he could make a stupid joke and change the conversation, “Look at me, this is not the truth.” He needed to bend so she could stare at him right in the eyes, it was probably an awkward position but Margo didn’t care. “It might be your truth, maybe you believe it with your entire heart, but it’s not the truth. You’re not unloveable, Eliot.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know enough,” She tucked the back of his hair and kissed his forehead, “You’re not a failure, you’re not a fake, you’re a survivor and you’re going to be so fucking loved that you’re going to forget what hate feels like.”

“Is that a promise?” He asked, tears finally falling and Margo knew at that exact moment that this was it, this was the man she’d die for. It wasn’t a blinding revelation but a soft epiphany, just an _oh, it’s you_ moment.

“It’s a promise, Eliot Waugh,” She let go of his face to hug him completely, “And I never break my promises.”

A few seconds after, when she felt her skin grow feathers, she wasn’t afraid, a little surprised maybe, but she couldn’t have possibly been afraid. Eliot was right next to her and that was all she needed, that was all she would ever need for the rest of her life.

* * *

It’s Quentin who reminds Margo of it all, it’s funny in a way because he’s maybe the only one who can understand her at that moment, Margo is not stupid, she’s seen how he looks at Eliot when he thinks no one is looking, but he’s also the last person she wants to talk to.

It’s his sadness, she can’t fucking stand it, it makes her want to pluck her hair one by one.

But he’s the one who sits down next to her, a bottle of Rye in one hand and two glasses in the other, and she just has to accept that. They drink in silence because she has nothing to say, nothing pleasant, nothing Quentin would want to hear but she can hear how his mind spins around, how he’s fumbling over something to talk about that isn’t _Eliot_.

Back a time, she and Quentin were close, actually close, closer enough for her to think that maybe they could build something real. But it was before Blackspire, it was before thinking Eliot was dead then being told he isn’t, it was before her rage had devoured Margo whole.

But she _loves_ Quentin, she truly does and when he says, “He,” He pauses, faltering then immediately finding back his footing “Eliot told me, you know, about your Trials when you entered Brakebills.” Margo wants to both kiss him and strangle him. She does neither, she just looks at Quentin, at his tired eyes and fidgety hands. “He told me you were the first person in the world who truly loved him.”

Doesn’t he understand how much this hurts? How this is breaking her? “I was,” She says because it’s the fucking truth and better never forget it. He might be in love with El, and he is she hears it in the way he whispers his name, but she was the one who exchanged her heart with him. She’s reminded of that novel she read when she was fifteen, the one that said, “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

“That’s Brontë.”

“Yes, Q, I do read sometimes.” She huffs.

“No, that's-uh, not what I was implying, it’s just that-,” He’s still a bit of a mess, that boy, but he’s less shy and scared than he was when Margo first met him. It’s good for him, she thinks, it’s just a shame that this confidence came from trauma and tragedy. “I wanted to tell you that I get it.”

She tilts her head on the side, ready to snap at him if he goes where she thinks he’s going, “Do you?”

“Not exactly, because whatever you and El have, it’s beyond anything another human being could understand, I think.” He smiled and it’s sad, so fucking sad. “But I get it just enough.”

“Just enough for what?”

“To know that it isn’t an option.”

“What, Quentin?” She asks, her nails digging into the side of Marina’s sofa, “What isn’t an option?”

He stares at her and it’s so weird, how his eyes reflect her own, how his fucked up shit matches her uncomplete puzzle. “Letting him die isn’t an option, Margo.” When he grabs her hand, Margo lets him, because maybe he does get it. “You promised him you would love him until he forgot what hate felt like and you never break your promises.”

“No,” She’s not crying, she can’t, she won’t. “I never break my promises.” She has a job to do, she has to bring back El and she’s going to fucking do it.

Because Margo Hanson has and will always be a _motherfucking_ boss.

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment if you want! (i thrive on that shit) and also pls pls pls come cry and rant with me about the magicians on [tumblr](https://starryspice.tumblr.com/) , i would love you forever <3
> 
> byyyyyye


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